A conventional incandescent lamp comprises a glass bulb enclosure joined to a lamp base, with a light emitting structure including a filament extending from the base into the interior volume of the bulb enclosure.
In order to save energy, as well as increase lighting performance, many incandescent lamps are being replaced by solid state lighting devices, particularly solid state lighting devices comprising light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
It is known to provide a lamp having LED's mounted on a bent printed circuit board (PCB), and then covering the LEDs and the PCB with a separate bulb enclosure. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,086,767 (Sidwell). In this instance, the LED substrate, i.e. printed circuit board, and bulb enclosure may be understood as being two distinct members, which adds complexity, weight and cost to a lamp.
The following illumination devices are also known: U.S. Pat. No. 5,585,783 (Hall); U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,247 (Bladowski); U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,942 (Thorton); U.S. Pat. No. 6,580,228 (Chen); U.S. Pat. No. 6,709,132 (Ishibashi); U.S. Pat. No. 7,086,756 (Maxik); U.S. Pat. No. 8,314,566 (Steele); U.S. Pat. No. 8,860,289 (Carroll); U.S. Pat. No. 8,883,287 (Boyce); U.S. Pat. App. Pub. 2005/0174769 (Yong) and U.S. Pat. App. Pub. 2014/0292176 (Athalye).
U.S. Pat. No. 7,862,220 (Cannon) discloses, at col. 5 ln. 45-col. 6, ln. 5, a molded backlit dome light (FIGS. 2a-d) in which LEDs 24 having wiring harness 22 are present on a peripheral annular border 21 of printed device 20a within whose interior region a diffusor is present and which interior diffusor region is vacuum molded (FIG. 2b) into a dome region whereas the LEDs and wiring appear to remain planar since border 21 is further integrated into a rigid bezel by its being overmolded with plastic introduced through anchoring holes 26.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,736,020 (Baroky) discloses a method of making a bulbous substrate to whose exterior surface the LEDs 102 are mounted only after having formed the bulbous substrate.